Ron Welch
Muskingum County Prosecutor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Columbus Drug Dealer Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison
Earlier this week Krisawn Taylor-Hayes, 22, of Columbus, appeared in a Muskingum County Court before Judge Cottrill and received sentencing for two drug related charges.
The charges Taylor-Hayes admitted guilt to include:
1. Trafficking in a Fentanyl Related Compound, a felony of the first degree with major drug offender specification
2. Possession of Cocaine, a felony of the fifth degree
Judge Cottrill, after reviewing the pre-sentence investigation, sentenced Hayes to sixteen (16) years in prison and ordered a mandatory fine of $10,000. Cotrrill also ordered that the vehicle Hayes utilized to commit the crime be forfeited.
Case Details:
Krisawn Taylor-Hayes was indicted earlier this year alongside Steven Smith in a case from June that involved a cooperative effort between the Zanesville/Muskingum County Joint Drug Unit, CODE Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office.
During the course of the investigation, Taylor-Hayes participated with Steven Smith to sell 400 pills containing fentanyl but appearing to be Percocet to law enforcement. Smith, Taylor-Hayes and their driver, Taylor-Hayes’s girlfriend Breonna Kelly, were caught still in possession of the money they were paid for the transaction.
“Every case we handle in which traffickers disguise fentanyl as a pharmaceutical brings back the memory of a local high schooler whose life was taken by a poisoned pill,” according to Assistant Prosecutor John Litle, who handled the case. “It is gratifying to work with our federal partners to bring justice to these serious, deadly crimes.”
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